Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category

Giving in isn’t giving up

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

I’ve fought the good fight. Since 2001 I’ve blogged exclusively via Blogger. It’s been a good run. Blogger made blogging easy, and maintenance was  a non-issue, but all good things must come to an end.

Google has decided to reign in the Blogger community and put all of our content under one umbrella. All the better to protect us and our content no doubt. The initial response from the blogging masses was not favorable. Google’s move to sequester their very own corner of the Blogosphere had the immediate effect of disenfranchising hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs catering to readers and publishers in China. Since blogs hosted on Google-owned domains are blocked in the PRC it will be “as if a million voices cried out and were suddenly silenced.”

Closer to home, my own blogs have been clipped off from other content on the domains I own. Sure, clumsy page redirects and some creative scripting could have resolved this, but at what cost?

Fortunately, the Blogger team at Google prepped the community in advance, and made a good effort towards helping us export our blogs if that’s what we chose to do, and I did.

So here we are, nine years later in 2010 and I’ve finally moved over to Wordpress. A little spit, a little polish, and a bit of PHP hacking and we’re back up and running!

So long Blogger, and thanks for all the fish.

Posted in Google, bloggers, blogging, china | Comments Off

Now for something completely different

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

I’m in San Francisco for the Google I/O conference/geekgasm. It’s too awesome for words. I’d almost forgotten how much I love this city and the West Coast in general. Gorgeous. Careful Maine, you just might loose me!

The Wednesday morning keynote was an introduction by Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra to the cloud availability, pervasive connectivity, and ease of deployment strategies Google is trying to realize with products like Google App Engine and Android.

I followed this up with a couple of sessions, one by Python creator Guido van Rossum and another by Google Fellow Jeff Dean. At the end of a fascinating trip under Google’s hood, Dean announced that the after party should not be missed. Oh yeah, he also let slip that Flight of the Conchords would be playing. The room collectively w00t!!11!-ed its pants.


Jeff was right. The party was something to behold. The main room where the keynote speech was held that morning had been transformed into a Google playland. Foosball, pool, Wiis everywhere. And the food. Two words: Chocolate fountain. I’ll say this, Google can throw a party. I’ve never seen so many developers in one place not bitching about work; and that’s saying something.

Throughout the conference we’ve returned again and again to several core philosophies Google holds near and dear, but there were some blind-spots I wasn’t expecting. Google is trying hard to be a good friend to developers and to humanity in general, but it’s just too huge and too powerful; there’s still an undercurrent of trepidation amongst many of the older and wiser attendees. And there’s definitely more going on behind the scenes.

With any environment where there is a finely delineated inside and outside, there’s going to be suspicion. And suspicion kills.

Unfortunately there’s nothing for it. Google can’t be what it is without holding some cards close to its chest, and we can’t survive as users and developers without remaining vigilantly critical of its motives and methods.

More to follow once I’ve had a chance to digest and ponder.

Posted in Google, Google Code, IO2008, Internet, bloggers, blogging, technology | 2 Comments »

Spring Thaw

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Some folks blog everyday. Back when this little thing of mine started, I was churning out several posts a day, so I get it. But life gets in the way of even the most powerful addictions. Even the sweet, sweet nectar of news and information can’t last long under the pressing weight of real world responsibilities.

So work has gotten the better of part of my time lately. The bills are paid, but the blog has suffered. Sort of. While I haven’t been consuming, digesting, and regurgitating nearly as much information as I’m used to, I have been busy with a hammer so to speak. I’ve reconfigured the navigation slightly with some shiny jQuery, and I’ve jumped head first into Google Code.

I’m pretty happy with the results so far, which is of course a very rough work in progress…as always. Now, after a few Sundays worth of reading and tagging my old posts and manipulating Google’s Ajax Feed API to work nicely with Blogger labels, I’ve managed to cobble together a real live tag cloud; color-coded and sorted even.

Sure it’s a nifty bit of code, but what I’m really happy about is the hard earned functionality of it all. Having to go back to re-read and tag all my posts from the past few years was an experience in itself, but to have all of those posts parsed and sorted in the cloud is like holding a funhouse mirror up to rapid dissent for the first time. I haven’t quite wrapped my brain around what that collection of topics and labels say about this blog, but my first impression is to feel disappointment at the limited scope of this space so far.

It’s a little late in the year for resolutions, and I was never good at keeping those anyway, so I’ll just call it a day and do my best to start letting this blog be a little bit more reflective of what I believe it is. Until then, rock out with the Flobots, and fight with tools!

Posted in Flobots, Google, Google Code, Music, Video, bloggers, blogging | 4 Comments »

Bleach and a wire brush

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Life is hard. We all have our daily struggles to deal with, and we do. We get up, we put on our ass-kicking boots, and we live. But every once in a while the universe squares up and really kicks you in the nuts. And when it does, it’s not some glancing, clip-the-sack blow either. I’m talking about one of those full-frontal, stars in the eyes, vomit inducing kicks in the nuts. The kind of kick that makes you wish you were dead just so the pain would stop. The kind of kick that, if you survive, will make you appreciate every pain-free breath for the rest of your life.

That’s the tricky part right there: surviving. We’ve all got our ways and means, but every one of us needs time, and my time is up. I still hurt, but my ass-kicking boots are calling.

In the mania of my recovery I’ve cleaned, organized, and simplified anything and everything I could get my hands on. This blog was the last little bit of clutter left in my life that needed a good bleaching, so I’ve taken a wire brush to the code and this is the result. Nothing special, it just is.

I’m not sure yet what direction “rapid dissent” will take from here on out. Ranting about politics and indulging in the odd conspiracy theory is great fun, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to continue screaming into the ether.

For the time being, my only dissent will be against urge to say nothing at all.

Happy New Year.

Posted in bloggers, blogging, family | Comments Off

2006 Year in Review

Saturday, December 30th, 2006

2006 was a year of momentous change for me and this site. Thanks to everyone for your continued support and readership throughout all of my ups and downs this past year. I’ll spare you the obligatory “I’ll post more in the new year,” crap. I’ll do my best, and I hope you’ll come around to check out the site from time to time.

This year I spent a lot of time studying data mining and personal privacy, specifically as they apply to security, national and otherwise. In doing so I’ve wrestled with the concepts of identity, privacy, and secrecy. My investigation so far has been as much technical as philosophical, and I feel as if I’ve only barely scratched the surface.

I’m still working through some of my conclusions, but for now here’s some raw data to chew on.

rapid dissent readership June-December 2006 (click image for larger view):

Special thanks to visitors from Senate.gov, House.gov, USDOJ.gov, and Army.mil. It’s warms my conspiratorial heart to know you care.

Posted in bloggers, blogging | Comments Off